#honno

201029 HONNO - EYESMAG Interview: ‘Wavy’s Graphic Designer (Visual Director); Honno Interview’

Q. The recent recruitment of artists from the label ‘Wavy’ which is led by Colde, has further revealed Honno as a well-known figure to many. It’s quite uncommon for a Graphic Designer’s name (that’s not a musician) to be added into the lineup. 

H: I have been working with Colde since 2016, which was way before the label ‘Wavy’ was even established. Our first work together was the album cover design for Colde and Crush’s single album ‘Your Dog Loves You’ (2018). During that time, Colde expressed his opinion on wanting to create a label that could kind of serve not just as a ‘Music entertainment’ but also as an ‘Artist’ agency label. Colde asked me if he could recruit myself and I said ‘yes’ without any hesitation. So far we’ve continued to work together since then. Before I was announced to join Wavy, I was already Wavy’s visual director. As of recently, we wrapped up everything we needed to and made the announcement.

Q. So you were an unofficial Wavy member?

H: That’s right, we’ve (Colde and me) known each other for the past 4 - 5 years when I wasn’t a Wavy employee yet. But I’m now part of the company. 

t/n: Colde and Honno were also in the same company before as well which was HIGHGRND.

Q. You mentioned that you are the visual director of Wavy. What type of work did you do?

H: I have been working on the album covers, physical album(s), teaser images, LP designs for the label’s musicians, and I’m still in charge of it now. But of course, it is not a must to work with me every time. Depending on the type of work, if there’s another designer who fits the concept or colour choices better than I can, then I recommend that designer to them. I also designed the current Wavy logo and the merchandise goods. We (Wavy) did not make the clothes ourselves but I worked on the graphics that are printed on clothes and other merch products. 

Q. It seems pretty evident that many of the album covers you’ve previously designed, resembles the musicians style. Perhaps, would you say those designs are a result of immense research on musicians and albums, or rather is it a projection of Honno’s design style. And what kind of style direction is it?

I believe that both directions harmonized together very well. For example, pastel-toned soft colours are often used in paintings. In fact, pink is my favourite colour which is evident in Colde’s [Love Part 1] album cover. I would say it’s one of my most memorable work, yet took the longest to design. If you look at the album cover, there’s a big heart (in the middle) but frankly enough I didn’t think like ‘I’ll just draw a heart since it’s an album filled with love songs’. However the heart was actually made by cutting and pasting pictures taken by Colde himself. There’s a saying that ‘all that remains are pictures’. So Colde just took photos to record his daily life. And when he collected all of them, they were just all scenery photos based on ‘Love’.  Which is what I also wanted to express (the concept of Colde’s Love Part 1 album). 

Q. Do you have a certain approach of expressing ‘Love’ in your work? And I’m also curious if you think ‘Love’ exists in the way you look at the world? 

H: Not really. What I tend to focus on with work is, to try and fully express the emotions I feel within that moment. And I expressed what I felt clearly when I worked on [Love Part 1] album cover. Thinking about it now, I don’t think I would have had the guts to make another album cover of [Love Part 1]. That’s just how I feel right now. So if someone asked me to convey the feeling of ‘Love’ as a colour, I would answer ‘blue’ instead.

✧ original source here

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